In the empirical article “A study of relationship between managers’ leadership style and employees’ job satisfaction”, researchers Ali Mohammad Mosadegh Rad and Mohammad

Hossein Yarmohammadian explore the relationships between managers’ leadership styles and employees’ job satisfaction in an Iranian Hospital. They state that “Job satisfaction is critical to retaining and attracting well-qualified personnel”, and define job satisfaction as “an employees’ affective reaction to a job”. Satisfied employees have a tendency to be more productive, stay on the job longer, and are more innovative.

There are different determinants for job satisfaction. These determinants include salaries, fringe benefits, leadership, autonomy, recognition, communication, working conditions, and co- workers. Out of all the determinants, leadership is viewed as one of the most important one.

Managers and their leadership style can have a big impact on employee job satisfaction, commitment, and productivity. These factors are important to contributing to the organizational success of obtaining its goals and objectives.

Mosadegh Rad and Yarmohammadian’s research aims to investigate the relationship between managers’ leadership style and employees’ job satisfaction at Isfahan University

Hospital in Iran. The results of the research allow for a better understanding of said relationship, which can aid further research, help with the strategies for recruitment, promotion, and employee training. Even though the research is conducted in an Iranian hospital, the researchers anticipate that the findings may be relevant to other organizations in different countries. Mosadegh Rad and

Yarmohammadian’s hypothesis is: Is there a positive correlation between leadership style and job satisfaction?

To support the hypothesis, Mosadegh Rad and Yarmohammadian collected data through a distribution of two questionnaires among randomly sampled employees from 12 locations of Isfahan University Hospitals. Out of 6,405 full time employees, 950 of them were selected for the research. Employees and managers received packages that contained a cover letter that explains the purpose of the survey and a questionnaire related to leadership styles and job satisfaction. The questionnaires were different for the employees and managers. Employees received a questionnaire related to their job satisfaction and their manager’s leadership style.

Managers received a questionnaire related to their leadership style and job satisfaction.

Both the leadership questionnaire and employee job satisfaction questionnaire consists of two parts. Part one of the leadership questionnaire that the managers received has 35 items, of which 15 determines a manager’s employee oriented dimension and 20 that determines the task- oriented dimension of leadership style. The framework of this questionnaire is based on Rensis

Likert’s model of leadership styles, which are exploitive authoritative, benevolent authoritative, consultative authoritative, and participative. The 35 items are statements that managers would rate with a five-point Likert scale ranging from very rarely to often. Part two of the survey consists of ten job motivators that the managers are to prioritize one time according to their personal interests, and a second time according to their employees’ personal interests. The ten job motivators are: good pay, job security, good working conditions, involvement, recognition, promotion, interesting work, loyalty to employees, tactful discipline, and help with personal problems.

The first part of the employee job satisfaction survey consists of 36 statements related to job satisfaction determinants (salaries, fringe benefits, recognition, promotion, communication, working conditions, nature of the job, supervisor, and coworkers) that the employees would rate on a six-point Likert scale from disagree to strongly agree. Part two of the questionnaire consists of the same ten job motivators listed in the leadership questionnaire that the employees are asked to prioritize according to their personal interests.

Since the participation was voluntary, 814 out of the selected 950 employees participated.

They include 665 employees, 127 first line managers, 11 middle managers, and 11 senior managers. The questionnaire return rate is calculated to be 85.68 percent. Missing data analysis showed that 88 percent of the respondents had no missing values for all of the items from the questionnaires.

The findings from the research indicate that the dominant leadership style of the managers in the organization is participative. The percentage of participative leadership styles among the managers is 100 percent for middle and senior managers, and 94.48 percent for front line managers. There is also a significant correlation between leadership style and employee job satisfaction. Data from the employees’ questionnaires indicate less job satisfaction with salaries, benefits, work conditions, promotion and communication, and more job satisfaction with the nature of the job, co-workers and supervision type.

Even though the results show a positive correlation between job satisfaction and leadership style, it does not necessarily mean that participative leadership style is the best style.

Each organization has their own unique culture, so managers would have to use their experience to gauge which type of management style would be best for their employees.

The major limitations of this research are voluntary participation and the location. It may be difficult to generalize the findings since the research was conducted only in 12 university hospitals in a certain province in Iran.